


Memories of a Mother

by AuguralSanguinary



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e12 Last Refuge, Gen, Just something that wouldn't leave my brain and is half decent, idk - Freeform, set in the middle of the mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 03:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18421590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuguralSanguinary/pseuds/AuguralSanguinary
Summary: Takes place in the middle of the Last Refuge:Essentially, Leonard tries to cheer Kendra up, accidentally incites some old memories.





	Memories of a Mother

Leonard knocks on Kendra’s door, waiting patiently for her to respond. She remains silent but the door opens, so Leonard figures that Gideon had told her he was there and she had responded to the AI rather quietly. “What do you want Leonard?” Kendra asks as he walks in. 

“I wanted to give you something, and perhaps tell you something. Sara told me about your past self’s advice on your relationships and how your conflicted about Raymond because he isn’t Carter and it’ll end in disaster. According to your past self.” Leonard explains, standing in front of Kendra, whose sitting on her bed. 

Kendra scoffs, “She shouldn’t have told you. It’s none of your business. Besides, me and Ray have already had our talk.” She says, looking up at Leonard.

“Perhaps, but Raymond won’t be your last relationship of this lifetime. You’re nearly thirty, after we survive this you can go date people who aren’t ancient assholes.” Leonard states.

Kendra chuckles a bit before responding. “Okay, what is it you want to give me? And tell me?” She asks and Leonard hands her the photo album that he had been holding under his arm for their entire conversation. “A photo album. Look Leonard, I know I said you as a baby was adorable, but I don’t think baby pictures are going to help me with my relationships.” 

Leonard sighs and sits next to Kendra on the bed. “They’re not baby pictures,” he had removed all those when Kendra and Sara kidnapped his baby self, “they’re pictures of your previous reincarnation, happy. I did a bit of research and tracked as many as the photos down as I could. It was 1970, and you were married to someone who wasn’t Carter.” Leonard explains, opening the photo album to the first ones which were Lewis and Kendra’s past reincarnation’s wedding photos.

Kendra makes an aborted little sound as she looks at the pictures, slowly flipping through the photo album. After a bit she shakes her head, “What is this suppose to tell me?” she asks, staring at a picture of her after she had given birth with a small lump curled against her chest, she was smiling so brightly, and her husband was staring at her and their child as if he had never laid eyes on a more perfect sight. 

“Your past self’s advice was to not have a relationship with anyone other than Carter because it would end in tragedy. That might be true, this relationship definitely ended in tragedy, but you were happy. In life you have to take the good with the bad. Maybe the relationship will end as your past self told you, but you’ll have been happy. My sister has a terrible track record with romantic relationships, most of these men I’ve had to have Mick scare them off so they don’t come back and try to hurt Lise once the relationship is over and done with. But my sister still falls in love, she still does relationships, because the only time she’s happier than when she’s with her boyfriend, is when she spends time with me and Mick. Relationships end. But you’ll always have the happy memories you made while you were in the relationship. And really? All your past self did was state a fact of life. You’ve, technically, already met your ‘soulmate’ so yeah, relationships will end in heartbreak. Everyone else goes through life, goes through relationships looking for their ‘other half’, dealing with the heartbreak that comes when they put their trust in the wrong people, when the person they’re dating turns out not to be a ‘perfect match’. That’s life.” Leonard says with a shrug, putting air quotes around soulmate, other half, and perfect match. 

Kendra stays silent for a bit, processing what Leonard says as she slowly goes through the photo album. Finally, she says, “I didn’t think you were one to be so inspirational, and sappy.” 

Leonard scoffs in response and says “Don’t get used to it,” before standing up and moving to leave the room.

He makes it halfway before Kendra clears her throat and looks up at Leonard, “You’re telling me, I should go through relationships because they can make me happy even though they’ll cause me pain in the end?” 

Leonard shakes his head and turns to Kendra, “No. I’m saying, you do what makes you happy. You seemed happy with Ray, and you’ll always have those memories. Maybe when we get back to Central, you’ll meet another cute guy and hit it off, maybe you’ll decide to not have any romantic relationships and only have close friendships and hook-ups, maybe you’ll decide to be a hermit.” Leonard shrugs with a “I-don’t-know-what-you’re-going-to-do” expression, before continuing, “You should do whatever makes you happy, because you’ll only live this life once, and you deserve to be as happy as possible for as long as possible.” Leonard says, and then without thinking, or really being in control of his body, he leans down and kisses her forehead before swiftly exiting her room in order to panic in his because _what the fuck is wrong with him?_ He’s not even that inspirationally sappy with Lisa for christs sake! Leonard mentally shook his head as he heads toward his room, it was probably because she looks identical to his own mother. And that that was more or less the advice she had given to a nine year old Leo a couple weeks before she died

Kendra sat on her bed as she listen to Leonard’s quickly retreating footsteps. Leonard was never very affectionate, hell he didn’t even like being touched, so for him to kiss her, on the forehead, had put her in a sort of shock. “Gideon, did Leonard just kiss me on the forehead?” Kendra asks quietly, still looking at the area Leonard had vacated when he left her room. 

“Yes Ms Saunders. Would you like me to replay it?” Gideon asks politely.

“No.” Kendra says, swallowing and then thinking about what he had told her. _‘You do what makes you happy’ ‘you’ll only live this life once and you deserve to be as happy as possible for as long as possible’ ._ Those fragments had felt so familiar. Like she had been told it before. Or had said it before. Kendra thought about it for a few minutes without getting anywhere except gaining a headache, so she drops it and continues to go through the photo album. It’s missing the entire first year of her baby’s life but she gets to see the boy grow up but she also saw her smile get more muted, more tired. _‘I guess this is when the tragedy began’_ Kendra thought as she ran her fingers over a picture of her with a small smile on her face while she’s knitting something. When she flips the page she sees her son in a knitted hat with a wide smile and her right above him with an equally big smile as she takes the picture. Kendra goes through a bit more of the photo album before she starts yawning. She puts down the photo album and lays down and Gideon dims the lights in her room. 

As Kendra lays there sleeping, she starts to dream of her past life. The one from the photo album. She sees herself having a happy childhood, meeting Carter, or Jason as he was called in that time, of them being highschool sweethearts, of him dying in a car accident. She sees herself, or Loretta as people called her in that life, meeting a kind man named Lewis, of them having a happy life, of him proposing to her on the anniversary of meeting, of their wedding. She sees herself giving birth, holding the small bundle of joy in her arms, giving the baby to the doctors, having a small scare of them misplacing her child, and then being able to take home a very familiar baby, familiar to Kendra, and raise him. _“My little Lion. My little Leo.”_ She hears herself coo to a baby _Leonard Snart._ She watches herself raise Leo until he was three, when the steady stream of short insights into her past life of raising a baby stop get interrupted by a police officer at the door telling her her husband had been arrested for larceny and is looking a five years in jail. The next five years blur together in a stream of images or short videos, an old man she identifies as her father at some point comes to help her with raising Leo. When the five years were over, when Lewis came back into the picture, everything took on a grim overtone. She saw herself arguing with Lewis, protecting Leonard from Lewis’s anger, taking on the brunt of the beatings when she could. A small part of those years stood out, her kneeling beside Leonard’s, as he preferred to be called now, bedside as he asks her a question she can’t make out, but she hears her reply. _“Leonard, my lion, you should do what makes you happy, not what makes Lewis happy. Your life is yours to live, and you only get to live it once, you deserve to be as happy as possible for as long as possible. My little Lion, you deserve the world, and deserve nothing the world has given you so far.”_ She hears herself say, and Leonard’s response, _“I deserve you don’t I, mommy?”_ She doesn’t hear her reply before two weeks pass by in a blur of arguments and beatings, and then she’s standing in front of Leonard, suitcases by the door, she can hear herself yelling at Lewis, and Lewis yelling back. Leonard is hiding behind the suitcases, he seems terrified. Then a loud bang, a sharp pain in her chest,then she’s on the ground, the wind knocked out of her, she’s trying to breathe as her chest burns with pain before going numb and finally blacking out.

**Author's Note:**

> Theres technically a continuation of this but its not really done and part f me kinda likes just ending it like this.


End file.
